Announced in December of last year, the Madden Club Series was an initiative by Madden publisher Electronic Arts (EA) to present the NFL clubs an opportunity to dip their feet into eSports. Eight teams signed on for the inaugural season: the Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Seattle Seahawks, Jacksonville Jaguars, Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers, and the Kansas City Chiefs. Not only did the teams sign on, but so did many of their brands.

Walk into a BDubs while your favorite eSports event is on television and more than likely they'll swap a TV over to the right channel.

You could watch the Madden Club Series finals at a Buffalo Wild Wings through the NFL Network, but the brand was also a sponsor of the Club Series qualifier events for both the Minnesota Vikings and the New England Patriots.

How did they Buffalo Wild Wings present themselves at these events?

Pretty well compared to the other brand integrations during these events. We'll get to the others in a series of follow-up TNL Brand Tracker posts.

Buffalo Wild Wings In Game During The Vikings Club Series (Photo: Youtube Vikings Club Series)

Buffalo Wild Wings was advertised during two of the eight qualifiers, specifically the Minnesota Vikings and New England Patriots qualifiers.

They ran a number of in-game banner ads (above), on the player backboards (below),

Buffalo Wild Wings In Game During The Patrios Club Series(Photo: Youtube Patriots Club Series)

and the Vikings countdown clock (below),

Buffalo Wild Wings In Game During The Vikings Club Series (Photo: Youtube Vikings Club Series)

FedEx is a NFL partner and has had previous partnerships with Madden including delivering free copies of Madden 17 to unsuspecting fans during this year's launch.

Madden Ultimate Team was also the game mode played in the Madden Bowl and that's another area that FedEx is involved with:

FedEx and Madden Ultimate Team (Photo: EA Sports)

Sponsored rewards has shown to provide effective ROI and positive brand sentiment for years within the gaming space. FedEx was also shown alongside the McDonald's Ultimate Team packs and rewards in game.

In a smart integration, there is a "FedEx Air 7 Ground" Player of the Week in the NFL, which is also part of the Madden 17 promotion and allows players to upload their highlights to be voted on to win.

FedEx Air & Ground Plays of the Week (Photo: EA Sports)

While this maybe a hybrid of in game/eSports Sponsorship, any Fortune 500 companies investing in the space is a good thing.

Here's a quick primer on the Madden Bowl occurring around the Super Bowl:

$250,000 Prize Pool

16 Players Start play in Orlando Today

Broadcast on Twitch, YouTube and Facebook

Finals In Houston Friday of Super Bowl Weekend

8:30PM On NFL Network

Great to see McDonald's invest in eSports.

While this looks like their 1st eSports sponsorship in the US, back in 2014 in Sweden, McDonald's launched the McFragbite and McHeaton burgers in honor of two of the country's most prolific gaming properties, Fragbite eSports news site and Counter-Strike player Emil Christensen, a member of eSports team Ninjas in Pyjamas.

Here's Christensen with his custom burger:

McHeaton Burger (Photo: McDonald's Sweden)

Look forward to seeing more investment from McDonald's within eSports.